He was in his Purple Rain persona back in 1984, and when the Purple One wanted to wear a dog collar, he got a dog collar. So Cynthia Vargas Sieloff, clothes designer for Donna Summer, Chaka Khan, Chicago, Earth Wind and Fire and others, made it happen.

“The dog collar was five inches wide,” said Vargas Sieloff, who lives in Laguna Niguel. “He wanted leather. That’s what he wanted, so that’s what I made him.”

Vargas Sieloff was devastated Thursday by Prince’s death. During this interview, she was driving, crying as she listened to “When Doves Cry.” She met him in 1979 and worked with him for about a year in the mid-1980s, designing outfits for his concerts and the photo shoot for his iconic album “Purple Rain.”

She just saw him in February at the “Life Celebration Ceremony” after the death of Prince’s former girlfriend Denise Matthews, known as Vanity. Vargas Sieloff said Prince was mobbed by selfie-seeking fans. He sat in the church balcony and left before the service ended.

“He looked very frail,” she said. “He had been sick. He should have been in bed. I think he worked himself to death.”

Vargas Sieloff met Prince through her best friend, Jamie Shoop, who was his manager for 11 years. “She kept telling me he was going to be a big artist,” Vargas Sieloff said.

She remembers Prince from 1979 very specifically. In concert, he wasn’t yet Purple. He wore thigh-high black boots, a G-string, beads and scarves. She remembers his big Afro.

“I was a clothes designer, and he didn’t wear costumes,” she said.

When she hung out at Shoop’s house, Vargas Sieloff would hear Prince practicing his guitar. “I would hear it all night. WAAAAAA. We listened to his raw guitar tracks. Oh my God, it was so loud.”

The first time they worked together, she designed a black suit for his concert at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium. This was during the Dirty Minds tour of 1981.

She stitched up an “Elvis collar,” and the pants buttoned up the side. She also made a silver suit that Morris Day, the opening performer, would wear later in the tour.

In 1984, just before the start of the Purple Rain tour, she got a plane ticket to Minnesota in the mail with a note “Bring your machine.” She assumed that meant sewing machine.

The problem was that she missed the flight.

A few days later, a gold limousine pulled up in front of her home with Prince inside. He escorted her to the airport.

On the flight, Prince sketched outfits while she wondered how she was going to make these incredible designs. He wanted a purple trench coat. He wanted puffy shirts.

He had one rule, she said. “He was the only one who could wear purple. I had to dress his band and The Time (his opening act) in some other colors,” she said.

Minnesota, where Prince lived, is not known for being fashion-forward, she said. Trying to design a purple trench coat, Vargas couldn’t find any purple fabric — except plaid.

Prince didn’t want plaid. So he flew her back to Los Angeles, where she bought $10,000 worth of purple material to make the suit he wore in the photo shoot for “Purple Rain.”

He had another request: gloves.

She explained that gloves took expertise that she didn’t have.

But her problem was solved when her mother, who hadn’t been excited about her daughter skipping college to work with rock stars, found three pairs of lacy, small gloves (beige, black and gray).

The gloves fit.

Prince wore the gray gloves for the photo shoot, and that picture was sold on albums around the world.

“When my mother saw that photo, I never heard about college again,” Vargas said.

Keith Sharon started at the OC Register in 1985. He's covered sports, education, cities, investigations and general assignment stories. He was one of the reporters on the 2005 Pulitzer finalist series "Toxic Treats." The Register has sent him to the Middle East (for a series on life on aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf), China (for the opening of Shanghai Disneyland), New Orleans (in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina) and San Francisco (for the World Series when the Angels beat the Giants). He has written two screenplays that have been made into films: ("Showtime" with Robert DeNiro and Eddie Murphy and "Finding Steve McQueen" with Forest Whitaker and Travis Fimmel). He lives in Trabuco Canyon with his wife Nancy, and three children -- Dylan, Alison and Trey.